


Stressed

by blue_eyes_incognito



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angry Sex, Angst, Anxiety, F/M, Fantasy, Identity Reveal, Masturbation, Matt likes it when Karen is aggressive, Memories, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Office Sex, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, References to Depression, karedevil - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 03:14:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6836737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_eyes_incognito/pseuds/blue_eyes_incognito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt can't seem to relax. He's in pain, and he can't stop thinking about how everything is terrible. But as his thoughts turn to Karen, he's finally able to think about something other than his troubles. As he remembers the way that she touches his arms and his face, he begins to imagine how she might touch other parts of him. Would she be gentle? Or might she take a somewhat firmer approach?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Restless

**Author's Note:**

> Each of these chapters could more or less stand alone as its own one-shot, but I wrote them in succession as part of a tied-together series of fantasies and memories that Matt is having at some undetermined point post-S2.

Matthew Murdock has dealt with stress in a lot of ways in his life--running across rooftops, picking fights with the scum of Hell's Kitchen. Grabbing a drink at Josie's with friends. Pouring a drink at home and drinking it in the relative quiet of his living room. Meditation. Going to the gym and hitting a heavy bag for awhile. Throwing himself into his work.

But sometimes, all of these things fail. Sometimes even the things that provide him with an outlet only seem to cause more stress. This had been one of those weeks. His body ached from the blows he'd taken the night before. Work--or the troubling lack thereof--was the last thing he wanted to think about, and to that end, meeting up with anyone at Josie's was just going to be a gigantic pity party. He'd spent nearly the last hour meditating, only to still find his jaw tight and his pulse rate speeding up at random intervals for seemingly no reason. He had no real desire for any of the Scotch in the bottle that sat on his kitchen counter, nor did he have much of a desire to walk across the apartment to pour it.

He stood up from where he sat on the floor, groaning from the soreness in his ribcage, took a few steps, and allowed himself to fall freely onto his bed. The mattress flexed around him, the bedframe creaking slightly from the impact. He exhaled and allowed his senses of everything around him to blur and melt, much in the same way as one might unfocus their vision when trying to clear their mind. Matt typically had no trouble clearing his mind, but this particular evening kept bringing troubling thoughts after only a few moments of peace.

He decided to take a new approach--if clearing his mind only caused him to think about everything that was causing him anxiety, then perhaps trying to think of the good things in his life would keep those thoughts from creeping in for a little longer. Matt inhaled deeply.

'Good things...good things...start small,' he thought to himself, finding that he was at a bit of a loss for where to start.

'I have a roof over my head,' he began, then paused, adding, 'For now. If the firm doesn't start bringing in clients again...'

He cut himself off, shaking his head, as if to shake the intrusive thought loose.

"Enough," he said to himself aloud, "Good things only. Try again."

He took another breath and searched his thoughts.

'Nothing seems broken at least,' he thought, touching his ribs gingerly, 'Though how I didn't hear that other guy...'

Matt stopped himself again. "No good, Murdock. Maybe try happy memories," he spoke aloud again, addressing himself. He rolled onto his side and wrapped his arms around a pillow, his mind wandering almost immediately to the last time he felt this way. Karen had come by. She hugged him. She assured him that he was never alone. 

He closed his eyes and remembered what her arms around him felt like. What his arms around her felt like. Warm. Comforting. Safe. He felt the tension between his shoulder blades ease ever-so-slightly.

A small sigh escaped Matt's mouth as he tried to hold on to that thought, only to feel it beginning to slip away.

'Karen. Karen's touch. Being close to Karen,' he thought, trying to keep himself on track with the one thought that had seemed to do him any good.

He thought of the time that she "taught" him how to shoot pool. He already knew, of course, but how strange would it be if a blind man could play billiards? So he let her guide him. It took him by surprise how close she got, pressing nearly the entire length of her body against him as she guided his hands with her own, her touch lingering just a bit longer than it should have...

Matt's eyelids fluttered and his shoulders relaxed further as the full sensory memory of Karen pressed up against his body stirred something else in him. His imagination shifted to the night she walked him home in the rain, kissing her...tasting her...

He imagined her lying next to him right now, her body making full contact with his, the gentle floral scent of her shampoo clinging to her hair and tickling his nose, the soft skin of her hands touching his face, her fingers dancing across his chest, and her mouth so close that he could lean forward and capture her lips with his own, stealing little tastes of her with his tongue.

This particular line of thought seemed to be doing the trick. He rolled again onto his back, feeling just the slightest bit lightheaded from his fantasy. He palmed his crotch, shifting his partly-swollen dick into a more comfortable arrangement. He wondered how Karen might touch him right now. Would her touch be gentle like it was that night in the rain? Or would she be more forceful, like the way she is when she's full of righteous fire? He weighed the two alternatives in his mind, imagining how a scenario with each might play out.


	2. Gentle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt fantasizes about Karen shyly seducing him after-hours.

Matt was working late with Karen in his office, both of them standing over a table of files that Karen had sorted as she explained her system and her reasoning behind doing so, guiding Matt's hand to the Braille labels that she had painstakingly created and affixed to each folder to make them easier for him to work with on his own. He stood closer to her than he probably should have in this setting, breathing her in, focusing on her voice, feeling the fabric of her skirt brush back and forth against his trousers as she guided him through her organizing process. As she finished, and withdrew her hands from the files to clasp behind her back, she brushed her fingers against his crotch, feeling the half-hardness that was concealed there, the result of the rhythmic back-and-forth swishing of her hips and skirt against him while she'd been reaching and pointing and guiding his hands across the files on the table. Matt reflexively took a step backward to give her space to move. He then sensed warmth come up on her cheeks and her heart rate quicken as she clasped her hands tightly behind her back. Perhaps the touch hadn't been as accidental as he thought.

"Hm?" He said to her, tilting his head slightly. Karen stood frozen, a deer-in-the-headlights, and unsure of how to play this off. Matt smiled slightly and took a step toward her, more than closing the gap that had been left by his reflexive step backward and left the next move up to her. Karen dropped her hands to her sides, relaxing, and letting her arms move freely as she turned, brushed the back of her hand against him again as she strode to the other side of the room. Matt felt a small surge in his groin as she did so, this time having definitely been on purpose.

"I almost forgot," Karen said as she walked out to her desk. Matt followed her as far as the doorway that separated his office from reception. He heard her bend down and open the bottom left drawer of her desk. The fabric of her skirt slid against her skin as she leaned over further to retrieve something from the back of the drawer. Matt found himself transfixed by the sound of Karen's clothing against her skin, which revealed to him a number of details regarding her current appearance and apparel, particularly that she was currently not wearing any underwear. This distracted him almost entirely from the fact that Karen had removed a bottle of Scotch from the drawer and was currently pouring a portion into two glasses.

Karen walked toward him with the drinks and pressed one of them into his hand as she brushed by him again, this time making as much contact with his body as she reasonably could as she walked through the door back into his office. Matt took a deep sniff before bringing the glass to his mouth, taking a sip, and letting the liquid slowly coat his mouth before swallowing.

"McCallan 12?" he asked, though most of his thoughts were still racing around the fact that Karen was almost definitely trying to seduce him. He took a few steps back into his office and leaned on the conference table as he took another sip.

"Mmhmm," she replied, taking a sip from her own glass and setting it on the corner of Matt's desk. Matt could hear her heart racing as she perched herself on the front of the desk next to her glass.

"What's the occasion?" Matt asked her, trying to both gauge her intent and confirm his suspicions.

"Nothing, really. Just felt like having a drink with you," she replied, fidgeting subtly by tracing her index finger back and forth over a scratch on the desk. Her heart skipped and fluttered as she answered.

Matt took a longer drink of his Scotch before setting it on the conference table and decided to take a risk on his next move as he stepped toward her.

"You've never really seduced someone before, have you?" Matt said, his tone jokingly accusatory.

Karen nearly choked on the mouthful of Scotch she had just drank. "What? No...I mean, yes, I have, but..."

Matt chuckled as he stood directly in front of her, so close that the calf of her crossed leg touched his thigh. "It's fine," he said, taking off his glasses and setting them next to Karen's Scotch. He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. He could feel the warmth rise from her cheeks as she blushed, and he tilted her chin upward to kiss her lips. She kissed back tentatively at first, then hungrily, bringing one of her hands up to caress his face while the other rested near his waist.

Matt gently parted her legs so that he could stand between them, resting one hand on her upper thigh and tangling the fingers of the other into her hair. Karen's hand traveled down from Matt's waist toward the bulge that was beginning to strain at the front of his trousers. She ran the back of her fingers across it delicately, but with more intent and pressure than either of the two times she'd done it "accidentally." The contact sent sparks up through Matt's body as his dick twitched involuntarily. Feeling the movement beneath her fingers, she cupped her hand over the tented fabric and began to gently massage his still-stiffening erection. Matt's mouth went slack and he stopped kissing Karen momentarily as she slowly increased the intensity with which she was manipulating him through his pants. As he did so, Karen stopped and began to pull her hand away, an apology on her lips.

"No," Matt said instantly, placing his hand atop hers, "Please don't stop." His voice was breathy and pleading. He took both of her hands and guided them to his belt as he leaned in again to kiss her.

Karen undid Matt's belt, then his pants, reaching in to free his cock, which had already begun to escape from the front of his boxer-briefs. She slid her hand along the length with little pressure the first few times, just feeling the warmth and weight of it in her hand. Matt exhaled sharply through his nose, his senses flooding with the heat and softness of Karen's hand around his dick. She stroked several more times with a firmer grip, increasing her tempo gently every few strokes. A small moan escaped his lips as his hands rushed to push Karen's skirt up her thighs. He traced a hand up the inside of her leg and around her clit, making small circles around it with his index finger as he'd dip into her wetness each time around, eventually sliding across the sensitive organ with the tip of his finger. The smell of sex surged up into Matt's nose as he did this, the wetness between her legs increasing almost exponentially. Karen jolted involuntarily and hooked one of her legs around his for stability as her grip briefly tightened around his cock. Matt began to probe gently into Karen with his fingers, eliciting tiny whimpers and moans. He began fucking her with his fingers, slowly at first, then faster, mimicking the pace with which she had begun stroking him. She thrust her hips forward into his hand as he grazed a sensitive spot inside of her. Karen moaned loudly and started jacking him off rather intensely while trying to guide his cock between her legs to replace his fingers inside of her.

Matt placed his other hand over Karen's hand to slow her stroking. Karen slackened her grip and ceded control as Matt pulled his fingers out of her and replaced them with the head of his cock. Karen inhaled sharply as he entered her. He rested there a moment, just inside her, feeling how her muscles were twitching around him and trying to pull him deeper. Placing one hand on the top of her ass, he pulled her closer and pushed deeper inside her. He moved to wipe the fingers of his other hand on the tail of his shirt, then changed his mind abruptly and brought them to his mouth. He could feel Karen watching him raptly as he sucked on the fingers that had just been inside of her, savoring her. He could hear her breath catch and quicken as he did so, and felt the muscles inside her twitch. He pulled the fingers out of his mouth and placed his hand opposite his other on her ass.

"You taste amazing," he whispered into her ear as he pushed into her as far as he could. Karen moaned and wrapped her legs around his waist. Matt thrust in and out of her a couple of times before he lifted her off the desk, supporting her with his hands cupped around each of her perfectly-shaped, firm buttocks, lifting and lowering her on his cock with a little help from her legs. The momentum increased, Karen's hips bucking intensely against him as he buried his face in her neck. The decision to begin licking and nibbling the sensitive skin below Karen's ear may have been a poor one in the moment, however, as her thrusting intensified further, knocking him off balance. He stumbled backward into the conference table, knocking the tallest stack of Karen's neatly organized files onto the floor. He stopped what he was doing and cringed.  
Karen looked over his shoulder at the mess and started to giggle. "Oops," she said, ducking her head onto Matt's shoulder. Matt sat on the edge of the table and caught Karen's case of the giggles, starting to laugh, too.

"It was my butt. I'll pick them up later," he said, lowering Karen onto his lap, still inside of her. She unwrapped her legs from around his waist, straddling him, and placing her hands on his shoulders. She pushed him backward onto the table, the remaining piles of folders sliding into each other beneath him. Matt scooted backward a bit and Karen climbed onto the table and began to ride him. Matt exhaled with a puff and moaned deeply as Karen alternated gyrating and stroking up and down on his cock. She took his hands in hers and guided one to her clit. "Like this," she said, as she rubbed his fingers firmly against her. She left his hand there to stroke her and moved her hand up to his chest, tracing his muscles with her fingers through his shirt as she continued to slowly fuck him. Matt squirmed under her touch as she grazed over his stomach. A smile tugged at Karen's lips. "Ticklish?"

"Very."

"Hmm." She looked down at where her fingers rested against Matt's stomach and wiggled them.

"Please don't."

Karen tilted her head and shrugged. "I won't."

She slid her flat hand more firmly up his chest and started to fuck him in earnest, lifting and lowering herself more and more rapidly onto him with her legs. Matt groaned and thrust his hips up toward her, his dick so hard inside of her that it almost hurt. He ran his hands up her body as far as he could reach, tracing over the tops of her breasts and back down her sides, pulling her by the waist to lay completely on top of him. He lifted his head and kissed her intensely as he tried to fuck her from underneath, seeking release. Karen's back arched as Matt's cock slid repeatedly against a sensitive place inside of her from this angle, and she lifted her hips to allow him better leverage. Her breath became increasingly ragged as she muffled a scream against his shoulder.

Matt slowed a little, just in case the scream wasn't one of pleasure.

"No, no," Karen panted, "Don't stop. Please don't stop."

He thrust back into her and picked up his tempo again. He could feel the muscles inside her squeeze and pulsate around him. The scent of her was everywhere, filling his nose, his mouth, his head. She moaned and screamed against him. She was close. Very close. He brought a hand to her face.

"I want to see you," he said quietly.

"Mm." Karen nodded into his hand, turning her face toward his palm. He fucked her harder and faster, feeling Karen's face contort, her jaw tighten, and her lips purse as she tried to muffle another scream. He pressed his thumb against her bottom lip, about to tell her that she needn't try to be quiet, as he felt her whole body go rigid and her jaw go slack.

"Oh, God, Matt!" she shouted as she turned her face entirely into his hand. His other hand ran up and down her back as he slowed his tempo slightly and tried to remember every detail about how she felt, how she sounded, and the expression on her face as she died her little death. She collapsed against him, breathing heavily. Matt was still rock hard inside of her, aching for his own release, but willing to wait for her to catch her breath first. She rested against his shoulder for several moments, repeating the same words weakly under her breath.

"Matt. Oh, Matt. Matt. Oh, Matt."

Matt nuzzled at her hair and whispered in her ear, "You ok?"

Karen nodded. "Yeah. Yeah. Amazing," she said, sitting up and shifting the angle of Matt's cock still inside her, rubbing against newly sensitive areas. She moaned, resting there for a few seconds as her head finished clearing.

"You still haven't--" she began.

"It--It's fine," Matt said, "I can take care of it."

"Absolutely not," Karen said, climbing off of him. "Sit up."

The air felt cold on Matt's dick as it slid out of Karen. He obeyed her and sat up on the table. He felt her slide down between his knees, and take his throbbing, impossibly hard cock into her hands. She stroked him several times before holding him firmly at the base and closing her lips around the head, swirling her tongue along the ridge. Matt took a sharp intake of breath, finding himself nearly overwhelmed by the particular sensation of Karen's mouth on his dick.

She stroked her hand along his shaft as her head bobbed up and down behind it, her tongue swirling the whole way. It took maybe a minute--he had already been so close--he put his hand on Karen's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze to warn her. She sped up her pace to bring him to the end, and within seconds, Matt let out a moan that transformed into a shout as his cock pulsed and released into Karen's mouth. Karen looked up with her eyes to catch a glimpse of Matt's face as he came. She swallowed as his muscles relaxed and he leaned back onto his elbows, breathing heavily. Karen stood between Matt's knees, smiling at him. He leaned forward and kissed her deeply, thrusting his tongue into her mouth and mingling it with hers. He broke the kiss when they were both smiling so uncontrollably that kissing became impossible.

\--

Matt smiled stupidly into the darkness of his bedroom as he stroked himself lazily, letting his fantasy of Gentle Karen play out in his mind. Precome had begun to leak onto his fingers, and as he imagined Karen orgasming atop him, he had to pull back to keep himself from coming before he wanted to. He still wanted time to fantasize about Karen's firey side and how her touch changed when she needed to control the world around her. 


	3. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Matt's fantasy, yet things still don't quite go as he intends.

Matt licked his lips absently and thought about the fire in Karen when she was full of righteous anger, when she was fighting to right the wrongs she saw in the world. He loved this side of her when they worked on cases, and more than once he'd found himself a bit turned on by her ferocious tenacity. The few times she had turned that fire on him, it truly burned to his core, hurting him deeply, but purifying him in the way that only righteous fire could.

Karen had only once turned that fire toward him differently, admonishing his sins and making him absolve himself to her, earning her back through carnal deeds. Matt thought about that time on occasion, but he began to wonder how things might go if it happened again.

\--

Matt called in sick to work, having had more than a rough night as Daredevil the evening before. He had barely managed to make it home on his own two feet, and a trail of smeared blood droplets led from his couch, to the stairs, to the door to the roof, and likely beyond. He'd mostly patched himself up, the source of most of the blood seemed to be a large gash in his leg, which he'd stitched up the best he could with hands that were weak and shaky from blood loss. The deep cut above his eyebrow didn't seem to bleed much, and he pinched it shut with a couple of butterfly strips before covering it with a bit of gauze and tape.

He reached down to check the dressing on his leg, patting it with his fingertips to check for moisture, either from blood or from infection. He felt a bit of dried blood that had soaked through, though the wound itself seemed to have long stopped bleeding. He could put off changing the bandage for awhile.

He stood, gingerly putting weight on his injured leg as he limped to the kitchen to get a glass of water. As his filled his glass from the tap, he heard someone approaching his door from down the hallway. The stride, the sound of low heels against the concrete floor--he took a breath through his nose--violet shampoo and perfume that smelled of jasmine and citrus--Karen. She knocked on the door.

"Matt?" she called, waiting a few moments before knocking again.

Matt stood frozen for a moment, taking a quick mental inventory of the first-aid supplies, blood-soaked gauze, and actual blood that currently littered his living room. He then took inventory of the clothes that he was wearing, or more accurately, was not wearing.

"Um, just a minute," he called back, rushing around to at least gather up the gauze and bandages that littered the floor. There wasn't much he could do about the blood. He wasn't even sure exactly how much there was or how noticable it would be. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants over his boxer-briefs, wincing as the fabric caused the bandage on his leg to shift slightly. He felt around for a T-shirt, finding the one that he'd hung over the edge of his laundry basket the day before. He walked quickly to the door, trying to practice not limping. He undid the locks and opened the door.

"I just came by to check on you. Foggy said you weren't feeling--what happened to your face?" Karen's hand reflexively shot up to touch the bandage on Matt's forehead. Matt reached up to pull her hand away as she stepped forward and corraled Matt into his apartment, shutting the door behind her.

"Don't tell me you fell again. I'm going to make you get a dog," she admonished, grabbing onto the hand Matt had used to pull her hand from his face, and pulled him further into the apartment. Matt tried to drag his feet and keep her from going further down the hallway, as he didn't want her to see the blood that he was pretty sure was all over the floor. His injured leg, however, would have been his anchoring point for this maneuver, and it's spectacular failure resulted in Karen striding determinedly into Matt's living room with him in tow.

"Jesus Christ, Matt," she gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth, "What the hell happened?"

Matt searched for an explanation, but came up empty. He kept silent. He was pretty sure Karen knew the answer to her own question anyway.

"Please don't tell me all that blood came from that." Karen touched the bandage on his head lightly.

"No," he said, "it didn't."

That was the truth.

"Then please tell me that's not all your blood. Actually, please tell me it is, because if it isn't that might be even worse."

Matt kept silent for a beat, considering his response. "Well..." he began.

"Well?" Karen replied, impatiently, staring holes into Matt that he could actually feel. And though the cut on his head hadn't bled much, he was still pretty sure he'd gotten his bell rung pretty well, because he was starting to hear the ocean in his ears and feel his legs sway beneath him.

"I need to sit down," he said.

"Fine," replied Karen, "But you're still going to explain this."

Matt nodded as he allowed Karen to lead him to the couch. They both sat down, knees touching.

"What happened to you? Where did all this blood come from?" Karen demanded once again.

Matt inhaled deeply, then exhaled, lifting up the leg of his sweatpants and wincing as the elastic grazed the bandage.

"I think this is where all the blood came from," he said.

"You 'think'? And how did you manage that? And don't think I'm going to believe your whole 'clumsy blind guy' stories anymore. I should probably be asking you who did this." Karen's tone of voice shifted as she talked her way through her thoughts posed as questions.

"Karen, you know I can't tell you that," Matt said, his tone soft and even. He hoped that she'd drop the indignancy and move straight to the comforting that she'd originally come to do.

"Yeah, of course you can't," she replied, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"Karen," Matt said again, placing his hand on her knee.

"Don't 'Karen' me!" she nearly shouted, scooting back from his touch,"You're...you're insane, Matt! Going out at night in that mask on your crusade to fix whatever's broken inside you, risking your life for God knows what, when..."

Her voice trailed off as she swallowed a sob that had begun to rise in her throat. Matt drew his hand to her face, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb. She wasn't entirely wrong, and he knew it. He had no response. Karen took a deep breath and began speaking again.

"I just don't want to wake up one morning and find out that you're dead," she said quietly, "I don't know what I'd do if I lost someone else I care about."

Matt leaned in and pressed his forehead against Karen's, continuing to stroke her face and remaining without a rebuttal. Several moments passed as they sat there in the relative silence.

"Well, don't you have anything to say?" Karen demanded.

Matt shook his head. "No, not really. You pretty much covered it."

Matt could hear Karen scowl. "But you're not going to stop."

"No," he said simply. But she knew that.

"Then can you at least start being completely honest with me about it?"

"I can't tell you everything, Karen. I can't put you in that kind of danger."

"That's not what I mean. Just tell me when you're hurt. Tell me when you're ok. If you're not going to stop this madness, at least tell me how I can help!"

Matt sat stunned for a moment before feeling an overwhelming urge to kiss Karen for what she had just said. He pressed his lips into hers, but she pulled away.

"Oh, no...you're not going to get me to forget this that easily," she said.

"That's not what I--" Matt began, before Karen cut him off.

"No, if I'm going to forgive you for being so stupid," she said with an unusually aggressive tone in her voice, "it's going to take more than just a kiss."

Matt sat stunned and speechless yet again, trying to decipher exactly what Karen had meant. He found himself at a loss.

"I don't--what do you want me to do?" he asked, helpless.

Karen's tone of voice turned dark and seductive. "For right now? Exactly what I tell you."

Matt's mind reeled momentarily, trying to catch up with exactly how, when, and why Karen's attitude seemed to shift so quickly from anger to arousal. But then he realized that it really hadn't, exactly.

"I could just stay mad at you," she said, "Or I could insist that you earn my foregiveness right now."

Matt nodded weakly. He wasn't entirely sure where she was going with this, but if his overall general understanding of her was accurate, he suspected that he understood the power play that Karen was attempting to make. He felt a rush of blood to his groin as he recalled the last time that she had been this kind of angry at him and how that had ultimately been resolved.

"And how would I do that?" Matt asked, knowing that he was pressing play on a series of events that would likely exhaust him in his weakened state--which was precisely Karen's intent.

"You can start by letting me take a look at what's under that bandage," she said, touching his leg lightly to indicate which one.

"It's fine, Karen. I already stitched it up, it's stopped bleeding..."

"Matt," Karen admonished, her tone indicating that he was not off to a good start. Though truthfully, this was not the start he was hoping for. Matt sighed in acquiesence and proffered his leg, lifting it and resting it carefully across her knees. Karen began to gingerly and purposefully peel up the tape that held the gauze over the wound, pulling individual hairs up his leg as she went. Matt was fairly certain that she was being deliberate in this. He licked his lips and scraped his bottom lip across his top teeth to disguise a wince. When she got to the part where she lifted the gauze, however, she did so with care, so as not to re-open the wound. Nonetheless, the places where the dried and clotted blood had adhered the bandage to the injury pulled away parts of the wound, causing Matt to openly grimace in pain.

"I'm actually kind of glad that hurts," Karen said cooly but with a bit of sharpness to her tone. "Jesus, Matt, did you stitch this up yourself?" Her tone shifted rapidly to one of both astonishment and concern.

Matt made a crooked face. "Why? How bad is it?" He reached down his leg to feel the stitches. Karen swatted his hand away.

"It's..." Karen paused for a moment to consider her words. "Well, it's going to leave a nasty scar, I can tell you that much. But I guess the stitches look like they're doing their job."

"I'm glad you approve," Matt said, his tone a bit more sarcastic than he intended. Karen shot him a look that palpably chilled the air betwen them.

"Do you have more bandages? It's starting to bleed a little."

Matt reached under the couch where he'd stashed the first-aid kit. "It's a bit depleted, but there's still some stuff in there."

Karen opened the box to find Matt's characterization of its contents to be a gross understatement. A roll of tape with maybe a twelve inches left on it, a couple of sterile wound dressings, a nearly-empty tube of antibiotic ointment, and maybe a half-dozen normal-sized Band-Aids were all the box contained. "Is this it?"

"There was more before last night." Matt attempted to defend himself.

"You are not helping your case, counselor," Karen said, serious, but good-natured. She proceeded to open one of the dressings and applied it to Matt's leg, pressing down on it with clear intent to cause him some discomfort. Matt cringed.

"You're a terrible nurse, Miss Page, I hope you know that," Matt joked as Karen secured the dressing with tape.

"That's because," Karen said as she smoothed the edges of the tape, "I'm not here," she clapped her palm down over the bandage, pressing against the wound, "To be your nurse."

Matt's eyes watered from the pain that radiated up his leg from Karen's grip on his wound. She looked straight into his eyes, and Matt could hear her even, yet slightly elevated heart rate, and hear her breath come as puffs through her nose. "Ow," he breathed out quietly, involuntarily.

"Does that hurt?" She tightened her grip slightly. Matt bit his tongue and nodded. "What will you do to make me stop?"

Matt looked at her somewhat helplessly, at a loss. This was not at all where he was expecting this to go. "I don't know," he said, "What do you want?"

"I want you to promise me," she replied, taking her hand off of his wound and guiding his leg off of her lap, "Promise me that...that I'm never going to wake up and find out that you died like this. That I'm never going to find you half-dead on the roof. That every time I see you I'm not going to have to wonder why your face is cut and bruised."

The words rushed out of her mouth sad, angry, and panicked. This was not at all how Matt had expected this scenario to play out.

\--

Matt lay on his bed, frustrated and exasperated, feeling himself grow softer in his hand as what he'd intended to be a fantasy in which Karen scolded him carnally morphed into imagining her speak aloud all of the ways in which he'd never wanted to burden her. And yet nothing about this detour of thought was inaccurate to the way that Karen spoke her mind and demanded that the world around her bend to her will. Matt knew what it felt like to yield to her completely. It had only happened once, and he longed for the strength to give that to her again.


	4. Yield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt remembers the one time Karen bent him entirely to her will.

It was only a matter of time before thinking about Karen led back to the anxiety and self-loathing that had been plaguing him all evening. Her gentleness and compassion were his panacea, but when the ferocity and take-no-shit attitude that he admired so greatly in her turned on him, it convicted him and turned him inward on himself, making him desire to be better--if only for her--and making him angry with himself when he would make the same mistakes over and over.

Karen had run hot and cold with him in the months since he'd told her that he was Daredevil. At first, she burnt white-hot with a combination of anger, fear, and relief that manifested as, what Matt had once later joked to Karen, "The best second date I could have hoped for."

Matt thought about that day briefly. Karen had, for reasons he still never fully understood, agreed to meet him. He held out his mask as an offering, along with his confession to her. Silence followed. He could still hear Karen's heart start to beat faster in that silence. He could still feel her flush hot from across the room. He could smell the change of her breath as her mouth went dry. The sound of her low heels against the floor as she walked toward him with an even, determined pace echoed in his mind. He could still feel the outline of her hand on his face where she had slapped him with every ounce of her strength. He could taste the salty sweetness of the tears that had begun to roll down her face as she then grabbed him by the lapels and kissed him with an intensity equal in every measure to the slap she had just splayed across his cheek. Her actions alone in that moment were nearly enough to bring him to his knees, and the words she spoke just inches from his lips as she broke the kiss left a mark on him deeper and brighter than any scar on his body.

"I know."

Of course she knew. Karen wasn't stupid. Shit, Karen was probably smarter and better than him and Foggy put together. He never asked her how long she'd known or how she figured it out. He didn't deserve to know that. He responded with the only words that made sense, the only words she deserved to hear, the only words he deserved to speak.

"I'm sorry."

Waves of heat poured off of Karen as she pushed him backwards into the door somewhat violently, her face never straying more than a handful of inches from Matt's. She kissed him again, and as her lips and tongue moved over his, he could taste every bit of her anger and found it spiced with sadness, gratitude, and fear. She then abruptly pulled away and roughly moved Matt out of the way of the door. And though Matt was allowing her to control his movements in this way, he still found himself surprised that Karen was far stronger than her lithe figure would suggest.

Karen pressed one hand into Matt's chest, holding him against the wall next to the door while opening the door with the other.

"Stay here," she commanded, pressing her hand more firmly against him as she moved to leave. She then slid her hand down Matt's torso and over his belt, pressing and squeezing firmly at the region below.

"Follow me home," came her next, seemingly contradictory command. She slipped out the door quickly, letting it close behind her with a soft click as Matt remained standing against the wall, blinking, breathing heavily, mask still in-hand, and listening to the retreating tap-tap-tap of Karen's low-heeled footsteps as she entered the stairwell and descended the building. The place below Matt's belt where Karen had last touched him had sprung to life, and he found himself adjusting it absently into a more comfortable and less conspicuous position.

\--

Matt moaned at the memory of this exchange. He still found himself stunned at how easy it had been to cede control to Karen in that moment and at how easily she weilded it. He began to feel himself relax again, his erection returning, and the gears of his mind turning as he settled into his senses and what they remembered from that day.

\--

The building fell silent as Matt heard Karen exit the front door and begin to walk at a quick pace in the opposite direction of her apartment. This made her second statement all the more confusing. He hadn't moved from the place where Karen had put him as he meditated on her words and her intent. He had, at the very least, followed her first command literally. The way that Karen was reacting reminded him for some reason of Electra and how she would speak in riddles and set him on chases for her across the city. The sudden realization that, at least in this small way, the two women were similar, brought Matt to a thorough understanding of exactly what Karen had meant--keep practicing law. Fight for Nelson and Murdock. But for now, follow her...she said 'home,' but she walked in the opposite direction. He tucked his mask back into the bag in which he'd been concealing it, stepped out of the office, locked the door behind him, and broke into a run, practically flying down the stairs, out of the building, and sprinting after Karen.

Her footsteps became less faint as he closed the distance between them; she'd had several blocks' head start, and he'd almost lost track of her in the din of the city afternoon. He'd never been more grateful for the uniqueness of her perfume, which made it a much simpler matter to distinguish her from among the throngs of people who crowded the sidewalks at that time of day. She was still far ahead of him when he came to an abrupt stop, realizing that she too had stopped--at his apartment building. Knowing her destination, though not quite understanding it in context, he dropped his attention on her and focused it entirely on getting there as fast as he could. He slipped into an alley, scaled a fire escape, and traversed the remaining distance across the rooftops.

As he descended the stairs into his apartment from the roof, Karen's presence in his living room took him by surprise. He'd expected to find her outside in the hallway.

"I told the super that I was worried that you'd fallen and hurt yourself," she said, "He let me right in."

Matt began to scowl, but shifted his expression to a more neutral one as he reminded himself that this was some kind of game she was playing, and whatever her motives, whatever her goals, he deserved whatever she was doing to him.

"Have you decided?" she asked.

Matt tilted his head and gave Karen a confused expression. "I don't understand. Decided what?"

"To stay. To keep the firm open."

"I--I don't know."

Karen made a disapproving clicking noise with her tongue. "Hmm. Well, at least it seems that you made a decision on the second part."

"I don't entirely understand that, either. I followed you, but I don't understand why you came here."

"Because you're not done following me yet. Come sit down."

Matt did his best to swallow his frustration with Karen's cryptic answer and walked over to sit in his chair, across from where Karen sat on the couch.

"No, not there. Here. Next to me," she insisted as Matt began to lower himself into the chair. He stood again and walked around the coffee table to take a seat next to Karen on the sofa. He faced her and remained silent.

Karen took a deep breath before she spoke. Her tone was soft and even, but her affect was flat in an attempt to either disguise or hold back any emotion. "I suspected for awhile. I've known since the night that Daredevil--that you--rescued me from the warehouse. When you touched my face, when you spoke to me, I knew."

Matt swallowed and nodded.

"But I didn't understand. I still don't understand," she continued, "Why do you do this? How do you do this?" Her tone rose and emotion started to break through the flat coolness she was attempting to maintain. She took another breath and spoke again with low evenness, "Tell me everything. From the beginning."

It wasn't a request, it was a demand. Matt knew this. He swallowed and considered carefully exactly where he should start.

"After I lost my sight, the world became impossibly loud; anything that touched my skin felt like sandpaper and fire; and suddenly everything became so pungent that the smell of the city made me gag. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, and I wanted nothing more than for it all to stop..."

For the next hour, Karen listened attentively as Matt told her everything--about about Stick, Electra, his father, why he started wearing the mask, and how his senses worked--he offered no excuses, only the truth. She deserved that much.

"So you _are_ blind," Karen said, posing it as a sort of question.

"Yes," Matt responded simply.

"But you still see things."

"Differently, but yes. It's hard to tell the difference anymore between what little my eyes actually _can_ see--movement, light, and shadow mostly--with what my other senses fill in. The way that the air moves around someone's hand or face, the change in their breath, fluctuations in heartbeat, the sound that eyes make when they move, all tell me things about gestures and facial expressions. Differences in temperature tell me where things are and what they're made of. Everything has a sound or a feeling or a smell that helps me understand a little more about it."

Karen nodded, a look of pure astonishment on her face.

"Like right now, I can tell you just nodded, and your expression is one of...well, I can't quite tell, but I can say for certainty that you're not mad."

Karen smiled and laughed lightly for the first time that day. This made Matt smile, too.

"So what about the cane? Do you really even need it?" she asked.

"I do and I don't. I don't need it to get around necessarily, but it takes a lot of concentration to listen and feel my way through the world. Sometimes it's nice to take a break and just have a conversation while I walk, or daydream, or put some headphones in and listen to music."

"Huh." Karen digested this information. Matt was pretty sure that he could hear the intensity with which she was currently thinking. He was definitely sure that he could hear the broad smile that crept slowly onto her face. "So these 'super senses' you have...are they just for avoiding walls and beating up bad guys, or do they have...other...uses?" Her tone shifted rapidly from inquisitive to mischievously seductive. She punctuated her question by taking his hand and placing it on her inner thigh.

Matt blinked, swallowed, opened his mouth to say something, immediately forgot what he was going to say, and proceeded to also forget to close his mouth.

"Well?" Karen traced her fingers up the inside of Matt's arm, making him visibly shiver.

"Um..." Karen's rapid shifts from serious to sensual were beginning to give him whiplash. He moved the hand that Karen had placed between her legs slightly, feeling the soft fabric of her dress and firm muscle of her leg beneath it. He debated whether he should move his hand to a slightly more appropriate location on her leg or if he should follow her lead and return her sensuality in kind. He slid his hand downward along her dress, under the hem of her skirt, and back upward toward its original place against her inner thigh, feeling the softness of her skin and the increasing warmth that eminated from it as he traveled upward with his fingers.

Karen leaned in and kissed Matt hungrily, taking little time for pleasantries as she began to push her tongue against his and bite at his lower lip. Matt felt himself stiffen almost instantly at Karen's aggression and shifted in his seat as his erection started to press uncomfortably against his trousers. Karen took note of this and pressed her hand firmly against the bulge, which simultaneously added to his discomfort and shot bolts of pleasure up his spine. He moaned and shifted against her hand. Karen withdrew with a smirk on her face, leaving Matt looking a bit lost.

"No, I don't think so," she said, almost gleefully, "I think I'm less interested in what this feels like," she gave his crotch another firm knead with the palm of her hand before pulling it away again, "and more interested in what _this_ feels like." She placed her hand atop the hand Matt had on her bare thigh and guided it further upward, sliding the tips of his fingers under the crotch of her panties and onto the petal-soft, moist skin of her labia. Karen withdrew her own hand and let out a small sigh when Matt stroked his fingers along her folds, familiarizing himself with the area.

Moving his fingers the best he could under the restriction of her panties, he dipped a finger into her wetness and began to trace circles around her clitoris, eliciting a small moan of approval from Karen, as she jutted her hips downward. He reached toward her with his other hand, moving it up the outside of her leg and hooking his fingers around the waistband of her panties, tugging them downward. Karen scooted and lifted her hips to assist in their removal. With the panties out of the way, Matt returned to the business of mapping out this part of Karen with his fingers, this time using both hands.

The scent of her had become almost overwhelming to his senses, the sweet-musk of sex filled his nostrils and made his head swim as he tried to focus on how Karen reacted voluntarily and involuntarily to each touch and each stroke, listening to her heart and her breath, feeling the increases in warmth, and noting every minute twitch of muscle beneath his fingers. Finally, having mapped every inch of the outside of her sex, he probed a single digit inward, feeling another world of wetness and heat and softness envelope his finger. Karen moaned slightly, as did Matt, his erection twitching involuntarily, as if it was begging to take his finger's place inside of Karen. He felt around, taking note of the different textures of flesh and what Karen did as he stroked and pressed against each of them. Having located a particularly sensitive spot, he slid a second finger in and began to stroke and press against it a little harder, causing Karen to squirm and emit a guttural mewling that caused Matt to reach down and press against himself with his other hand, hoping to relieve some pressure.

Karen, seeing this out of the corner of her eye, swatted his hand away from himself and ordered him in a low, dark tone that sent a chill through him, "Knees. Now."

Finding himself in a state in which he felt compelled to obey every command Karen gave him, he sank to his knees on the floor between her legs, running his hands up the insides of her thighs, and returning to the business of learning the inside of her with his fingers. As he probed her opening gently with two fingers, Karen combed her hands through Matt's hair and pushed his head downward. The scent of her at this close range overwhelmed and disoriented him completely, leaving him with little other sense of where he was or what he was doing. He couldn't think, he couldn't hear, and Karen's skin dissolved to nothingness beneath his fingers as he sank back onto his heels, his entire world having become the scent of Karen's need. His head swam as he reoriented himself, focusing on blocking out the heady perfume of sex and desire. Reality slowly came back into focus as he could feel the floor beneath him, Karen's thighs under his hands, and her breath in his ears. The world was still entirely Karen--just more of her.

He leaned forward, placing his face between Karen's legs where she directed him. He breathed her in, now able to temper the effect it had on him, and stroked his fingers along the inside of her labia, spreading her. He licked his lips lightly before he hesitantly probed the area with the tip of his tongue, tasting her, and experiencing a whole new sensory rush. His world zoomed back in and became only the taste of her and the feeling of the delicate flesh beneath his tongue. He focused here briefly, a sweet, astringent flavor spreading over his tastebuds, tiny muscular contractions quivering against his sensitized tongue. As he became familiar with the sensations, he was able to zoom out on them, adding them to the bigger picture. He flicked and swirled his tongue around her clitoris as he began to probe into her with his fingers once again. Karen moaned constantly and rested her head back on the couch as Matt focused every sense he had on learning just where to touch, how to lick, and when to speed up and slow down. He put everything he had, everything he was into pleasuring Karen, offering a silent apology with each touch for every lie he had told, hoping that she would accept this as the first of many acts of penance he would do to earn her forgiveness.

\--

Matt's face was flushed as he stroked himself harder and faster, thinking about how it felt to have Karen push his head between her legs, to have her command him, to be subject to her will alone. He moaned quietly as he remembered how she bucked her hips, arched her back, and practically fucked his face as he pleasured her on his knees. The absolutely filthy moans and cries that came out of her mouth as she climaxed rang in his ears as he felt his own orgasm rise from inside him, and he stroked himself even more furiously. He could taste the sweet-hot rush of her release on his tongue as his world turned to static, and cum spilled over his hand and down his wrist.

Breathing heavily, Matt relaxed into his bed, his muscles loose and without pain for the first time in days. He reached over the side of the bed, groping along the floor with his fingertips for the dirty T-shirt that he'd left there the day before, using it to wipe the cooling, sticky cum from his hand and forearm. He discarded it back to the floor and closed his eyes, drifting finally into the best night's sleep he'd had in ages.

**Author's Note:**

> Someone mentioned on Tumblr awhile back that there needed to be more multi-chapter Karedevil fics. It wasn't my intention to write a multi-chapter Karedevil fic, let alone a smutty one, but my hand slipped, and the next thing I knew, several thousand words happened. Enjoy. And as always...
> 
> Write more Karedevil!


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